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[Szkeptik]

I have one gobbler and 7 hens. Also a migrant brought a chicken hen. The chicken claimed a nest box but the turkeys did not. they are all on the same pasture with the 8 nest boxes. According to the wiki I shouldn't be able to ever beat them out of the nest boxes, but on the contrary, they won't even go near them. What's the problem?

[XXSockXX]

Sometimes it takes a while, how long have they been in there? Also they don't claim them permanently, just from time to time. Do you have any "turkey hen egg" in your stocks?

[Szkeptik]

Don't know. The game just crashed and I lost half a year. Have to build up a bunch of things all over again.

[Garath]

if your dwarfs collect the eggs before you notice, you'll never see a claimed nest box. They only claim a nest box when they need to lay eggs and while they try to hatch those eggs. It's not like a bedroom that they claim for life

[Dwarfler]

The birds will only claim the nest boxes and lay every so often, and the second the eggs are laid one of your dwarfs will come to haul them to a food stockpile.  You really have to be watching like a hawk to have a chance of forbidding them in time.  The best thing to do is disable eggs on all of your food stockpiles so no dwarf comes to haul them away.  You should also turn off the cooking of turkey eggs in the z-Kitchen screen so your cook doesn't come over and grab them straight out of the nest to make biscuits.  Finally, be sure your nest boxes are not in a heavily-trafficked area.  If a dwarf blunders through and displaces a mother bird from her nest for even a tick, the eggs will stop incubating and will not hatch.

[Azated]

Or you could just build a room specifically designed for hatching and lock the door. Make sure the pasture's big enough, though!

[Sutremaine]

Not a problem with turkeys or other domesticated animals, but animal trainers reinforcing the training on an animal will handle it roughly enough to pull it off the nest box. As if breeding elk birds wasn't difficult enough...

[Garath]

I'm pretty sure OP thinks a bird claims a nest box permanently, and that has been the misunderstanding (note the amount of nestboxes compared to the number of egg layers, half is more than enough)

[Szkeptik]

Thanks or all the help! I can get down to breeding turkeys now.